Thats me done
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What corporates can do when they monetise a forums data
@DavecUK Dave I did not have the slightest idea of the scale of what the corporate could do to a forum. I would call it a “forum plague”.
I have been visiting the old forum not realising that I was somehow helping their cause.
I will stop doing it, however tempting it might be sometime helping a newbie with an advice (we all have been there in the beginning) and I will stand guilty as charged.
Current setup: ACS Vesuvius, Nuova Simonelli Mythos One. Past experience, Nuova Simonelli Apia 1 gr., San Remo Capri 1 gr., Bezzera BZ 35e, Fracino Heavenly. Anfim Super Lusso.
Contact me at: john_yossarian11@yahoo.com
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I have also noticed that under the Top Contributors for the last week are the names of people who had not been seen since April 2021. This should be some devious software solution.
Current setup: ACS Vesuvius, Nuova Simonelli Mythos One. Past experience, Nuova Simonelli Apia 1 gr., San Remo Capri 1 gr., Bezzera BZ 35e, Fracino Heavenly. Anfim Super Lusso.
Contact me at: john_yossarian11@yahoo.com
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John_Yossarian Dave I did not have the slightest idea of the scale of what the corporate could do to a forum. I would call it a “forum plague”.
I have been visiting the old forum not realising that I was somehow helping their cause.
I will stop doing it, however tempting it might be sometime helping a newbie with an advice (we all have been there in the beginning) and I will stand guilty as charged.
Obviously, I need to ensure I clarify some things. It’s not every forum that dies, certain types of forum will always survive e.g. the speakev forum they purchased, because it covers a huge base of all electric cars and is something that (according to the government) we will all be driving one day. It’s all very new to most people, so a forum based on that topic will flourish. In general, forums have been having a hard time of it, as most (not all) are operated to make money for someone, and many don’t make much money at all.
VS are not evil in as much as no corporate is…but they are not there to further the interests of coffee or the community. Realistically, they are there to make money…period. It’s a bit like amazon, it’s to make money, now I have no problem with Amazon and use it, because it’s a convenient way to get stuff.
Coffee is my hobby though, it’s what I do for fun in retirement….I like helping people and people got a fairly poor offering 2 decades ago, a sort of any colour as long as it’s black world. I enjoyed helping companies bring far more richness to the consumer. Much of it by helping one company, which stimulated change and innovation in others to keep up e.g. Helping design the first Izzo Duetto. So it irks me to see what keeps happening in coffee and recently more and more people in it just to make a quick buck, prepared to say anything, regardless of it being bullshit.
The VS thing was simply a step too far for me, and something I could no longer support in any way possible. The stuff I did before for Tait was purely to help keep the forum healthy, so he would hang on to it (not close it)…instead he also decided to cash out. Please remember these are my standards and right for me..I don’t expect anyone else to follow them or feel the same way, I just wanted/needed to share my thinking and rational for what I (and the other 2 mods did).
I hope that it shows other forums who get assimilated that there is another way, and it doesn’t have to revolve around money. While freeflarum.com exists, anyone can do what we did for free and a few days of their time. It might also give VS pause for thought the next time they want to assimilate a small community, and do proper due diligence to find out it wasn’t almost 30K users…not even close..
I know we all like to help people (otherwise we wouldn’t be here) and it is very tempting to answer, only natural. However, I am glad you were able to make your own mind up about what was a “step too far” to you. I for one, hugely enjoy being on this forum compared to CFUK…because it’s ours.
P.S. CFUK only has 10-20% of our posting activity each day, as more people realise, it would be nice to see that drop to only spam posts and 1 post wonders, who join and wonder why no one replies..
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@DavecUK
Hi Dave, thank you for sharing. I have never doubted your drivers in what you had been doing. I have known you via different forums since 2008 and I am fully aware how much you have given and what work ethics you have got.
If there is anything to be said, you are the unsung hero of coffee enthusiasts globally.
I would have loved to write a poem or a song for you but unfortunately I have no talent (credits go to South Park, Ben Affleck quote). :)
I have noticed something very strange. My first post in this thread says “deleted” and my Avatar is not longer visible. The post underneath has my avatar intact. Is this a glitch or have you deleted somehow the avatar when replying?
Anyway, this is not important.
Current setup: ACS Vesuvius, Nuova Simonelli Mythos One. Past experience, Nuova Simonelli Apia 1 gr., San Remo Capri 1 gr., Bezzera BZ 35e, Fracino Heavenly. Anfim Super Lusso.
Contact me at: john_yossarian11@yahoo.com
John_Yossarian I have noticed something very strange. My first post in this thread says “deleted” and my Avatar is not longer visible. The post underneath has my avatar intact. Is this a glitch or have you deleted somehow the avatar when replying?
Anyway, this is not important.
It must be a glitch, I have not had to moderate anything or delete anything since the forum started….apart from posts made using the test account. We are also not high enough up in the search rankings to get spam yet…..but I wait for the joyful day when we get our first piece of spam….it will mean we have arrived.
DavecUK VS are not evil in as much as no corporate is…but they are not there to further the interests of coffee or the community. Realistically, they are there to make money…period.
This sort of corporate activity happens in other sectors as well. I know a small school that was gobbled up by a greedy investment company and the families eventually managed to do what this forum is doing: everyone left and the school that was taken over closed.
Unfortunately these are the exceptions. In most cases the corporates win.
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Doram Unfortunately these are the exceptions. In most cases the corporates win.
Well, this time they have come up against highly caffeinated resistance….;and a resourceful, determined community.. For some reason, a few people who have not been seen for ages (I mean many years) are suddenly posting more often than they did in many years on CFUK, which is quite funny considering the situation. I can’t help feeling other forces are at work….but they will soon get bored.
That forum needs to die off, and then it sends a very powerful message to the corporates. I was asked about our “advertising rates” only today on “my” forum….so it’s still possible to quietly make money from a forum and must be very tempting for forum owners to do so..
My reply included:
The forum is completely non-commercial and requires no sponsors or payment from commercial entities.
Well there is no going back now. Received this today. I am officially out.
I suspect the admin is getting an arse kicking from his bosses, of course he earns little and works much….with all those forums to admin, he couldn’t really have the time to devote to CFUK. I suspect they were hoping that the mods would continue to do it….However, once they stuck in the heavy boot of corporate ignorance, they lost any commitment we might have had and proved they had absolutely not changed.
If users didn’t report spam, I suspect it would remain there for weeks, rather than days…. Posting is mainly new joiners now, run the way it is and simply acting as an internet billboard for google luxury ads (or that’s what will happen when it migrates to Xenforo)…it has served its purpose…as a coffee forum and should be allowed to fade away.
Meldrew I’ve had confirmation today too, only sent the request a week ago.
Yes, got a positive reply as well, my user name is now anonomyzed, but not in quoted replies.
SteveBRS Yes, got a positive reply as well, my user name is now anonomyzed, but not in quoted replies.
The way Invision handles quotes, I think your names always stay when quoted. It’s a little different to Flarum, where I think the quotes are dynamic links.
10 days later
I still pop by from time to time, mostly to catch gems like this and see how long they go unmoderated. https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/topic/63889-i-feel-so-lucky-to-know-this-app/
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Rob1 I still pop by from time to time, mostly to catch gems like this and see how long they go unmoderated. https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/topic/63889-i-feel-so-lucky-to-know-this-app/
Theres loads Rob
https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/profile/33507-ameliasolis/ (this ones just waiting to spam the **** outta the forum)
https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/gallery/image/1409-eureka-mignon-specialita-burrs/
https://www.coffeeforums.co.uk/topic/63807-coffee-shops-with-website-need-some-help/?do=findComment&comment=872331 (probably spam)
There are loads more, plus username spam as well. Vscrote know nothing about coffee, and never even tried to learn….it’s not surprising they can see it. They have no real interest. They were, however, interested enough to remove my signature, remove me as a mod, and set my account to no e-mail confirmation. This effectively bans me, because they (mistakenly) thought banning me would show me as banned against my profile and posts, and might have looked bad.
This didn’t surprise me because their admin has not exactly told the truth about anything….and really doesn’t give a rats arse about anything but his job, managing many many forums.
P.S Be funny if their (inexperienced) admin is reading this….and deals with the spam
6 days later
This has been an interesting read. I knew nothing of this.
I have spent some time over the last few months on the Home-Barista.com forum. Seems like many knowledgeable folks on that site. But it is clearly monetized with lots of appropriate ads from the local companies including Clive etc. But it seems pretty innocuous. What are your thoughts about that site? I sure prefer this one, I must say, and I am glad I found it.
dndrich Greetings, it is a bit hard to comment as the structure of the US and UK systems are so vastly different. It appears, that the whole US system is based around $ and everything is maximised to that purpose. In the UK, not quite so much. So, this explains partly why this forum is a non commercial forum. There is nothing wrong with adverts and especially ads that have some relationship to the nature of the forum.
But, and it is a big but, the VS system appears simply to use non tailored ads through Google. I for one absolutely detest sites that do that. I go onto a site called Newsnow to look for specific Football info, and every few seconds ads that obscure most of the page randomly pop up and it annoys the hell out of me! If I visit HB, I consider myself to be a guest and therefore accept the advertising policy.
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dndrich I have spent some time over the last few months on the Home-Barista.com forum. Seems like many knowledgeable folks on that site. But it is clearly monetized with lots of appropriate ads from the local companies including Clive etc. But it seems pretty innocuous. What are your thoughts about that site? I sure prefer this one, I must say, and I am glad I found it.
The site has always run as a business, it’s not been sold and monetised multiple times to end up in the hands of a faceless corporate who don’t care about coffee. The people running Home Barista are clearly interested in coffee and if they want to monetise it, that is their choice.
This site isn’t monetised because the small community has gone through enough and don’t deserve to be subjected to a profiteering corporate with zero interest in coffee, or the community. I’ve had enough and clearly so have they.
Interestingly, VS migrate all their forums (the one forum they have not migrated (Vbulletin), because I believe they own the Vbulletin system now. As I was saying, they migrate all their forums to Xenforo running on their platform. They do this because it’s all cookie cutter forums so paid admins can easily manage multiple forums and they are all arranged to data share and show adverts everywhere (the cost recovery model, after all they need to get 50-60K back). They announced a day or so ago they were going to Migrate the UK forum they took over for
- Benefit of members (yeah sure)
- Move from an old out of date system (the current forum system, used Invision was up to date)
- New features and functions (I think the opposite will be true
I’m glad you like this site…the UK coffee forum scene is small and fragile….we needed to show there is another way when VS come knocking, and anyone can do it. If a community wants to badly enough, it can go its own way for free. No advertisers or commercial interests to upset.
P.S. I thought VS wouldn’t care, but they did…now I would just like all the forums that are left to notice.
8 days later
SiblingChris They seem to be getting quick at it. Not had much spare time lately, so only just got round to sorting an account over here and mailing them to remove my data and anonomise my account. They’ve already responded and checking my posts just show as a number now.
Ad_G Well they have what they really want….the database of posts, not because of it’s technical value to anyone…that’s perishable. It’s because it’s a fantastically fine meshed net of coffee keywords, crawled by the search engine bots/spiders.
As for activity, they really only need a minimum keep alive activity to maintain the search engine rankings and usually get that by attracting new fish who make a few posts. They sometimes manage to convince people to keep posting, but in general that dies away after a while…because a community can only take disinterest for so long.
I looked around at the various forums they run and for the more specialised ones, might still have members posting who run side businesses etc…even that dies away eventually as VS usually stamp on it…..unless those members can become mods.